Everyday Sublime

Originally recorded on April 22, 2024, Josh reflects on the parallels between artistic and spiritual development. He explores a maturing relationship to tradition. How do we draw from the world’s wisdom traditions and channel their pathways of heart in our own lives? And how might we consider cultivating a devotional practice to a personalized expression of the divine?

Originally recorded on April 15, 2024, in this dharma talk, Josh offers a fresh perspective on how to cultivate an ethical commitment within your meditation practice. 

Instead of referencing an orthodox list of do’s and don’ts, Josh uses each of the five training precepts in Buddhism as a way to open to a deeper exploration of your heart’s desire.

Many members of the sangha have expressed ambivalence or uncertainty around what their heart’s deepest desire is, and this talk is an introduction to a way of practicing to really listen in a way that allows your heart’s desire to speak.

I am delighted to welcome Insight Meditation teacher Chas DiCapua on the podcast to discuss a wide-range of topics, exploring how the dharma can help us meet the tragedies of our “now” – an interrelated group of crises of ecology, nationalism, racialization, and, in some ways, masculinity. 

Chas has been practicing Buddhist meditation for almost 30 years. He has trained with Burmese meditation masters, western monastics of the Thai Forest tradition and senior western vipassana teachers. He has spent over two years in silent, intensive retreat.

Originally recorded on April 8, 2024, in this dharma talk, Josh offers ways for you to create your own mantra to use with any bead-based form of meditation practice. 

A mala, rosary or bead-based garland by any other name is a wonderful way to strengthen your capacities for concentration, kindness and peace.

Grab your beads, listen to this talk, and develop your custom-tailored mantra practice.

Originally recorded on April 1, 2024, in this talk, Josh reflects on his history with bead-based practices, ie. mala mantra, and suggests ways of beginning to integrate this practice into your own.

Why Train Online | Qi Chats with Josh + Terry

In this Qi Chat, Terry and Josh discuss some of the ways that an online yoga training is a far better educational experience than the in-person training. 

We talk about how the pandemic shifted our Yin Yoga School to an online format and how beneficial this has been for our students and our own teaching. 

Originally recorded on March 4, 2023, I share Herbie Hancock’s story of playing a “wrong chord” during a Miles Davis solo, and what Hancock learned about music and life from that experience. For me, Davis’s response is the very essence of creative generosity, and it says something about what it means to bring a spirit creative generosity to ourselves and others in our practice.

Originally recorded on February 26, 2024, I offer ways of tending to your external and internal environment for establishing conditions conducive to simplicity, contentment and calm. Practice is life, without any separation. Vacuuming, laundry, bills and email are all part of a comprehensive practice. And when approached in this spirit, every moment of the day becomes an opportunity for practice.

After this talk, I offer a guided meditation for brightening the heart in preparation for insight meditation.

On the podcast this week, Terry and I sat down to discuss our experience of integrating massage and Gua Sha into our yoga and pranayama practice routine. 

A Gua Sha stone is a tool used in Chinese Medicine to “clean the blood of toxicity.” In lay terms, this refers to the way that massage and Gua Sha help promote the flow of fluids through the fascial fabric, especially in lymphatic vessels, helping to eliminate wastes and pathogenic factors. 

Until I spoke with Amiel Handelsman, I had mistakenly thought that the term “meta-crisis” referred to the overarching sense that the world is in a massive crisis of overlapping calamities, all threatening our survival. But after speaking with Amiel, I realized that I was thinking of the poly-crisis. Amiel explained to me that the meta-crisis refers to an underlying crisis of all the crises on fire. The meta-crisis is a crisis of consciousness or being – a root crisis in terms of how individuals and collectives will rise to meet the challenges that besiege the world today.

I was heartened to welcome Amiel Handelsman back on Everyday Sublime to share his thoughts on how personal development, and systems of personal development, like the Enneagram, can help frame a generative response to the metacrisis. In short, we need to grow up, clean up and wake up to deeper capacities of our being to deal with the multi-horrific poly-crisis.

Amiel has a professional background in leadership, management and executive coaching along with a strong foundation in the Integral Theory of Ken Wilber among other frameworks.

Amiel is also launching his own excellent podcast: How My View Grew, which looks at the origin stories of big ideas about humanity's challenges. 

I highly recommend subscribing to Amiel’s show. I always learn a LOT from my talks with him.

On the phone recently, a friend shared a comment from their therapist: “Until you stay in the same place for three years, you’re never going to address and heal your shtuff.” The therapist didn’t say “shtuff,” but the comment is relevant to anyone interested in the fruits of contemplative practice.

But, as a sangha member emailed to me, the challenge of staying in place – physically or metaphorically – is that all too often when we try to pause, we get overwhelmed by the various floods of worry, anxiety, fear or worse. What to do?

In this talk, I speak to ways in which dharma practice attunes us more vividly to this challenge, and how it offers a way through this formidable challenge.

Qi Chats is a new series within the Everyday Sublime podcast where Terry and Josh answer your questions and discuss the elements of cultivating Qi. 

Originally recorded on February 12, 2024, Josh shares a dharma talk that weaves reflections on cancer, the psychology of tribalism, cognitive bias and the invaluable role of practicing pauses to bring an unbiased attention to the immediacy of experience. 

Greg Burdulis, a former Buddhist monk, leads you to be calmer, happier, and kinder. He listens, questions, teaches, and trains. He works with individuals and couples using somatics, Buddhism, and humor.

Recently, one of my sisters and nieces visited us in Maine from Brooklyn, New York. It was a wonderful visit, but on the second day, Uncle Josh ate his niece’s last chocolate-covered graham cracker and there was a price to pay. 

In examining the anatomy of the cookie monster, I expose my own blind-spots and biases and suggest how dharma practice can help bring us to a more balanced relationship to the strong currents of views and opinions that often flood through our minds.

Originally recorded on January 15, 2024, in this dharma reflection, Josh introduces the Buddha’s metaphor of “crossing the flood to the other shore,” as a way of articulating the process and experience of waking up. 

Recorded on December 18, 2023, Josh shares a Christmas story that weaves the humor of family dysfunction with the spirit of healing, repairing and caring for all valuable relationships in our life. 

This is the final episode of 2023. Thank you so much for listening and for your support. We look forward to sharing more Everyday Sublime with you in 2024.

Happy Holidays to all!!

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Winter's Essence | Talk + Workshop

Recorded live on December 4, 2023, Josh reflects on the spiritual essence of winter as manifest in nature and within his family of origin, and how the season of winter offers a crucible of transformation, surrendering to harsh realities, cultivating gratitude for life at all and embodying a creative expression of compassion. 

Oren Jay Sofer | Your Heart Was Made for This

I welcome Insight Meditation and communication teacher, Oren Jay Sofer, back to Everyday Sublime, to discuss his new book: Your Heart Was Made For This – Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity and Love.

In the face of overlapping multiple crises – from personal, to collective, to environmental – it is very easy to feel overwhelmed and despairing. Oren’s new book is a true handbook for the modern contemplative, providing reflections, stories, and practices so that we can meet and face the moment of our times with a wise and compassionate heart.

As he says early in the book, “If we do not shape the heart, the world will do it for us, and the world does not have our highest welfare in mind.”

In this talk, recorded on November 13, 2023, I share a small collection of personal vignettes in which my senses deceive me, creating emotional convictions that are ultimately inaccurate. I raise the question: What do these experiences suggest about the nature of self, the nature of truth and the nature of conviction?

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In this episode, I speak with Insight Meditation teacher and communication coach, Miles Sherts, about his approach to “conscious communication.” This is one of the most elegant approaches to generative communication that I have found.

We discuss how many people, and especially couples, get into arguments about “what happened” or about “truth.” Putting the “truth trap” aside, Miles explains why he suggests people focus on their feelings and needs, and I share just how difficult that pivot in conversation can be.

We also explore the problem with morality and why Miles advocates a shift from morality to integrity. 

Miles and I are planning a series of episodes that will explore a variety of interrelated themes, spanning from Insight Meditation, to Conscious Communication, to the problem of egoic identity, the culture wars and existential collapse. I’m looking forward to sharing this series with you and encourage you to pick up either of Miles’ very helpful books on Conscious Communication.

In this episode, I am joined by psychotherapist and author Nancy Van Dyken whose book, Everyday Narcissism – Yours, Mine, and Ours, sheds some fascinating light on this ubiquitous condition of the psyche. EN, or everyday narcissism, isn’t clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s a fragile psychology that is conditioned by the way so many of us were raised by family and by culture. 

If you’re interested in more stable relationships, better boundaries and how to heal shame, I highly recommend Everyday Narcissism.

In this special episode, I am honored to be joined by my first – and most significant – dharma teacher, Rodney Smith. Rodney spent several years as a Buddhist monk in Burma and Thailand, working notably with Ajahn Buddhadasa, Krishnamurti and Nisargattada Maharaj. He disrobed as a monk in 1983 and, after returning to the West, started working in hospice care and teaching vipassana meditation throughout the U.S.

For over thirty years, Rodney was a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society as well as founding teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society. 

Over the many years of sitting retreats with Rodney at IMS, I found him to be one of the most challenging, provocative and passionate teachers I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. In our wide-ranging conversation we explore dharma practice and the heart’s completion right now. 

We’re sharing the first talk of our new training: Refining Metal | The Wisdom of Qi Cultivation. Josh reflects on the question: How do we cultivate wisdom in our practice? What is the relationship between refining our awareness and our ability to express compassion and wisdom in our lives?

NEW TRAINING: The Chinese word for spirit is “shen.” In Chinese Medicine our spirit resides in our heart. With practice, we gather, channel, flow and settle our spirit within the heart, awakening and deepening our capacity to wake up, grow up and clean up. 

Like sharpening a knife, training awareness to see clearly involves a number of skills that refine over the course of practice. In this talk, I share some of my favorite ways of cultivating a calm and open state of embodied presence. Included: Short Guided Meditation.

NEW TRAINING: The Chinese word for spirit is “shen.” In Chinese Medicine our spirit resides in our heart. With practice, we gather, channel, flow and settle our spirit within the heart, awakening and deepening our capacity to wake up, grow up and clean up. 

In this episode, I am excited to share an introductory talk about our second module in our Yin Yoga + Qi Cultivation training: Refining Metal | The Wisdom of Qi Cultivation.

In October, we’ll be teaching this module LIVE, exploring the energetic and meditative dimensions of Qi Cultivation. The Chinese word for spirit is “shen.” In Chinese Medicine our spirit resides in our heart. With practice, we gather, channel, flow and settle our spirit within the heart, awakening and deepening our capacity to wake up, grow up and clean up. 

Recorded on August 14, 2023, I give an upcoming preview of new Yin Yoga classes and training Terry and I will be offering in Fall ‘23. 

Yin Yoga + Qi Cultivation Trainings: 

Recorded on August 7th, 2023, Josh offers some thoughts on practicing with deliberate slowness. This talk includes reflections on the spirit of improvisation with simple practices like “walking hands” and “half-breath” meditation.

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Recorded on July 31st, 2023, Josh offers reflections on the convergence of personal and collective dukkha. In the face of such challenges, our commitment to practice nurtures the resilience and sensitivity of the heart.

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In this talk, I share three points of advice for anyone embarking on a silent meditation retreat, either at a center or from home. My advice comes down to: 1) set the schedule and forget time, 2) kiss the moment, and 3) notice the negative.

I hope this talk supports your practice. Special thanks to the members of the River Bird Sangha for supporting this free podcast.

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In this episode, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Don Goewey (Executive Director of the De Mello Spirituality Center). We discuss DeMello’s significance as a spiritual figure of the 20th century, and how he offers a unique view of eastern and western spirituality. Don and I reflect on DeMello’s dharma, the experience of seeing one’s shadow, and the rude awakenings that occur when everything falls apart.

In this talk, I discuss practice as a form of improvisation and suggest ways of working with “forms” of practice as a way of developing one’s skills at improvisation. I conclude with a Sufi story about a duckling, leaving open the question of how improvising in practice reveals our true nature. 

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In this talk, I reflect how, on a vipassana meditation retreat in Myanmar, I became compulsively obsessed with finding the perfect height for my meditation cushion; I explore what this behavior reveals about the “clinging” mind.”

“An attachment is an emotional belief that without a person, thing or experience you can’t be happy.” – Anthony DeMello

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In this episode, I speak with my friends and colleagues Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer about their wonderful new book, Reflective Meditation. We talk about many themes of their approach to meditation, including: listening, journaling, and improvisation. 

In this talk, I share a patchwork of dharma reflections, exploring some everyday conundrums and synchronicities – appreciating the sublime in the innocence of a niece and a godson.

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The questions that have gripped me for the last twenty or so years of my practice are these: What is the relationship between yoga practices and Buddhist meditation, and what does Qi cultivation, as described within Chinese Medicine, have to do with yoga and meditation? 

In the opening talk for our new course, Yin Yoga + Qi Cultivation Training, I share my practice odyssey – as a yogi, as a meditator and as an acupuncturist – exploring the relationships amongst Yin Yoga, meditation and Chinese Medicine. These stories shape the principles and practices of this training. 

In this five-minute talk, I describe the ALL NEW Yin Yoga Training and Continuing Education immersion that Terry and I are launching this June. In this training we will integrate four acupuncture point formula for supporting adrenal, fascial, Qi and spiritual health with the practices of Yin Yoga and Qi Gong. Perfect for any Yin Yoga student or teaching looking to add more depth and empowerment to their teaching.

As part of a Mother’s Day reflection, I recount the harrowing story of getting robbed in the middle of the night on a train in India, and how a “spiritual” mother appeared to both save me and subsequently change the course of my life. I conclude with a meditative prompt for honoring and appreciating our spiritual ancestors.

In this dharma reflection, Josh draw’s on his and others’ observations of bird life in the natural world, and weaves these reflections into a broader meditation about the role of images and reflections in the practice of the dharma.

The students were discussing the famous statement uttered by Lao Tzu: “Those who know do not say; those who say do not know.” When their teacher arrived he offered some helpful analysis in the form of a simple dialogue. 

In this talk, Josh reflects on this wonderful story and its implications for meditation practice. 

The Buddha once said: “Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as ‘I’ or ‘mine’.” In this talk, analyze this statement as an important signpost on the map of practice. 

As Georg Feuerstein put it: “The sense that ‘I’ can go beyond where ‘I’ am right now is the place from which to start your practice.”

In this talk, Josh continues to unpack the experience of waking up, exploring how consciousness often awakens to being entangled with some part of experience (usually thoughts), and to explore what it’s like when consciousness relaxes into itself, embracing the entire field of perception.

In this dharma talk, I reflect on a teaching from my dharma mentor Jack Engler: “the entirety of the spiritual path is a path of mourning.” This talk is an attempt to explore that reflection in light of the practice and experiential dynamics that occur when we let go of grasping at views, perceptions, orientations and practices, etc. 

In this episode, I welcome Donna Brooks back to the podcast to talk through the experience of grief and how embodiment practices support our capacity to navigate this challenging emotional landscape. 

In this talk, I explore some common views about meditation and thinking, and I encourage bringing inquiry to the views of practice that we may be clinging to. Releasing views is somewhat like voluntarily jumping into free fall. The self will grasp, but in releasing the grasping, we align with the Buddha’s famous teaching: “Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as ‘I’ or ‘mine’.”

In this week’s practice story, I continue to explore the famous Buddhist parable about the tiger and the snake, and I suggest how the core images of this story symbolize the central dharma themes of our practice and life.

In this old Buddhist parable, we are presented with a description of the human predicament. In the face of being caught between death and something worse, how does our practice serve us to live, as Munindra put it, “the life fully?”

In this episode, I share Jung’s famous story of the Rainmaker. I suggest ways in which this story offers insight into the direction of the spiritual path. But when there was a prolonged drought in China, and the Rainmaker was fetched, this is what happened…